I really enjoyed this session, our first after the party leveled to 1. First thing that happened was the Elf spellburned and rolled a natural 20 on his patron bond, so, that went well. (But see later on... heh heh heh.)

They encountered the vine horrors and made short work of them, thanks to some good initiative rolls. The party very quickly learned that warriors = good (+d3 to hit AND damage, using a longsword? one-shot vine horror). The Cleric used detect evil to great effect, and was alerted to the presence of the two beastmen in the gate house, so they looped around back. At that point he detected evil again and rolled a natural 20, so they were able to spot the avalanche trap, and the tomb of Felan. One character rolled well enough to spot a safe way up so I let them ascend following him, then they caused an avalanche (the Cleric was hoping it would seal up / destroy whatever was down there, but no such luck).

The tomb of Felan was a lot of fun... nobody thought to read the runes, two 0 levels were blown to bits by the fire trap. Then they spent some time with the ice... one character hurled a vial of holy water into the tomb. This was interesting, something not contemplated by the module at all. I made it cause a bright explosion that evaporated all the ice, but then the ice quickly crystalized again. I figured it needed to do SOMETHING, but the tomb is much more evil than the little vial is good. A 0 level managed to pry the axe free then failed his reflex save to try to get out, so I had him fall ON the axe... at that point we discussed the luck mechanic again, and between the 0 burning all of his luck and the halfling adding a bit, the 0 was able to avoid a grisly end.

After that, they looped some chain around the body and hauled it out of the tomb to try to get the armor, I had the body disintegrate completely after they pulled it out. They weren't impressed that it was just hide (though the chaotic warrior, a noble with a 3 personality [bastard son outcast], gave it a lot of thought), so they allowed the Cleric to burn it. While that didn't completely destroy the armor, it did render it useless/ruined.

They went back up and checked out the well very briefly... one char almost fell in and they quickly bolted from the well over to the chapel. Expecting some sort of Walking Dead inside, they chained the doors loosely then removed the bar, peeked inside. A brave 0 level explored in for a bit, nothing bad happened, so they opened the doors fully. One of the Thieves (or maybe the Elf) shot a flaming arrow into the pool of what they figured was oil, and it ignited... I figured the tar ooze liked this so it didn't reveal itself. Then they searched around inside, and discovered the censer (evil) and the incense (wrapped in evil cloth). Lots of Cleric freaking out about evil relics, others going "let's light it up, come on it'll be great guys!"

Somebody had the bright idea to get some water from the well and pour it into the fountain in the chapel. The 0 wandered off, failed his will save, and went into the well. (Later I realized he gets a reflex save to keep from completely dying, so as the night was wrapping up, we let him burn all his luck to survive... amazingly, he had JUST enough. He got a facial mutation on the table, so I ruled that he looked like the corpses from the American remake of The Ring, all distorted and pulled down. The party is probably going to kill him when he shows back up.)

I rolled to see if the beastmen realized what was going on, heard the avalanche, or whatever, and they did. But the halfling was wise to my tricks, and had positioned himself to watch the tower door about 10 or 15 minutes before that. So I ruled that he saw them running out the door, and the fight was joined. The Elf went for his patron spell, which is Jeet Kune Do (very similar to the Iron Fist patron spell posted by nerdwerds here earlier this week). Natural 1. Patron taint! I haven't even written it up yet. So I had him roll on the Three Fates patron taint list, he got the shadow self doing bad things that he has to go confront and defeat. Should be a hoot.

The champion got one swing off but the chaotic Warrior has a 16 AC, so he missed. Sigh. Next round the party's initiative won, and the Elf got off a sleep spell that took down the champion and another beastman... their will saves suck. Double sigh. That was all she wrote for the beastmen, as the party's initiative was good enough the following round to go first for most characters, and the rolls went well, so down went the champion and two beastmen - the remaining 3 fled on their initiative back to the tower, and that's where we stopped.

Thoughts thus far after playing with level 1s:

Magic, when you roll well, is po-wer-ful. I love it.They're still not very savvy on the burning luck mechanic. I think they're getting there, though.Mighty Deeds of Arms: nobody's used it yet. One Warrior player wanted to, but was like "I can't think of something to do." It may take a while. I may encourage them to come up with some default signature moves and give them a silly name. They did try to strike at the beastmen's weapons and arms and stuff, but missed.Detect Evil is very useful, but I'm worried it's going to result in a TPK by the Leviathan because they won't think to use the censer, or they may destroy it. We'll see.

I just played the opening of Sailors with three of my kids. I can see how the vine horrors would be easy pickings for level 1 characters, but they were murder on the 0-level troupe! The horrors never even got to use the extra auto damage from hitting twice in a round, because every time I rolled damage, it came up 3 or 4 and put the character down from a single blow. We went from 12 characters to 9 in that one encounter.

My real gaming group is going to start DCC next week, and I'll be rolling in the open for them. But if I play with the kids again, I'm going to screen the dice and give myself the option of fudging rolls.

On the plus side, my 11-year-old who's normally a real sore loser took his two character deaths in pretty good stride.

Had my first DCC session last night, 3 of us with four characters each.

Tangentially, there's something about making '0-level burners' that really brings out the names - we had Jack Smith (the Blacksmith), Wise Clive, Tin-arse Tony, Russell Tango Foxtrot and Idle Vice and Merv the Perv.

Anyway - after some DM byplay about the, uh, enthusiastic use of the word 'Cyclopean' ("my cornflakes this morning... deliciously cyclopean") we were off. We saw the vine zombies and skirted them, narrowly avoiding a crushing death on the rockfall with our first luck roll. We decided the pentagram/rune door was way to scary to enter, and skipped it entirely. Our first death was Wise Clive (Wizendiclavindarius) the Elven sage. He looked a little closely at the well and plummeted to his dissolution. He was one of mine, and had =4x 13s= in his stats, sigh.

Next up we did some fairly slick scouting of the burnt room, retrieving all the gear and blatting the slime monster without any problems. Following that we levered open the tower door, and murdered every single beastman without taking a scratch (a cunning use of the 10' chain and decent tactics probably the MVP here).

We grabbed the treasure from the gatehouse, and headed downwards . We probably missed a bunch of stuff between the tower and the sea, but we grabbed a skull for light each which proved invaluable.

On the sea shore we gleefully missed all the clues and instead knocked down the tower door, turned it into a raft and paddled it out to the ship with a rope. When we got snaffled by the ELDER MONSTROSITY we fought it until it had eaten a few of us then sacrificed one of the characters to it (Lucky Grog, for added irony).

At the island we cloaked up and used the 10' chain to pretend the rest of our diminished band were prisoners, then slaughtered the priests and the chaos lord with the help of the skulls (and the loss of ... three? more of our dudes). Sadly the fallen included Jack Smith (the blacksmith), which was sad as he'd been pretty awesome. Still, a fighter with a 3 Stamina was probably always going to be a little iffy.

Overall - a very nicely done oldschool meatgrinder. We didn't get the hints about the incense, which woudl have saved a bunch of us, but it's more because we weren't paying attention than that they weren't clear enough.

Session 2, wherein I begin to realize this party has too many chaotics and is probably doomed...

They engaged the remaining beastmen in the tower, and took two 1st level character casualties, learning some hard lessons in the process. But miraculously the characters lived (one had to burn some luck), so it was a nice introduction to the roll-the-body-over mechanic. Also, the cleric (the only one) failed several rolls and incurred a lot of deity disapproval, so things started looking grim on that front. Then, down they went.

A halfling triggered the trap on the chest but didn't lose any fingers (boo!), the chaotic warrior/noble put on the silk tabard (this is going to be a big problem for him later on, but he doesn't know it yet). Then they stopped and thought wayyy too much about the hole leading down to the tomb. In the pool room several characters picked up skulls, and they took the robes but only a couple put them on. Nobody got into the pool, so that was that.

Down to the beach they went, and a level-0 wizard's apprentice that they hooked up with in the tower above went and inspected the menhir, but he made his saving throw and resisted the urge to sacrifice someone. Then he lit the candle and the dragon ship silently came ashore. They debated a bit, went back up to inspect the hole (which dead-ended in a cave-in next to the tomb), then went back to the ship and climbed on board.

Halfway out into the black water, the tentacles rose and stopped the ship, and they debated a bit. I'm not sure if it's just getting late by this time but it seems like their first reaction every time is "I kill it with my axe." So, basically, a TPK is pretty likely at some point. Anyway, nobody remembered anything (which was disappointing) so I pointedly remarked "aren't you forgetting about your urge to sacrifice someone, mister wizard's apprentice?" At that point there was some laughing around the table and chants of "kali maaaaa!" and the wizard's apprentice and the chaotic warrior/noble went after a poor 0-level dwarf herder's pig. The dwarf did his best to defend his pig from the apprentice, but the warrior/noble went behind him and used a mighty deed to hit/catapult the pig overboard. The dwarf bum-rushed the apprentice and tried to push him overboard, but he made his save (I was disappointed).

I figured the pig was big enough, and alive/fresh enough, to satisfy the beast, so it let them go. But I had the tentacles knock the wizard's apprentice, so he had to make another reflex save to avoid falling into the water, which necessitated him burning all of his luck. So, there's that...

We had to stop as soon as they reached the shore but nobody even remembered that they picked up the censer, nor does it seem to ever occur to them that there's got to be another way other than charge directly forward, so I'm pretty concerned that they're going to go splat against the ziggurat.

Long term, though, something is going to have to be done about the chaotics. It's tough to cheer for a bad guy, even if he's fighting other bad guys. I mean, people may like Scarface, but nobody thinks of Scarface as a HERO.

Other lessons: man, clerics are awesome when they're on, but once you start failing, things get ugly very quick. It seems to be a way to check the amount of spells/healing done, but yeah, that player (who also plays the chaotic warrior/noble) ran into that hardship pretty quickly, versus last time when he was rolling 19s left and right. Just a few 1s and 2s and it's all over.

Well, the final encounter took 3 hours. We started Session 3 with the dragonship beached at the ziggurat, and I told the players that they ought to take stock of where they've been, what they've got, and what clues they've seen.

Then I turned over the 3 minute sand timer.

They decided to try the censer with the incense, and Juan Delgado (played by Benjamen), the chaotic warrior with the black silk tabard and chaos sigil (of Shub-Niggurath, in my campaign) went first. The beastmen genuflected to him as he drew near and they noticed him, and growled in homage, "Shub! Shub!" Several other characters followed behind carefully (Leeroy Jenkins, Lawful Thief; Yngwie Malmsteen, Lawful Dwarf - both played by Carsten; and nameless wizard's apprentice, 0 level but very chaotic, played by Zack), wearing the wormy robes from the pool room. The rest of the characters hung back, unnoticed by the beastmen, who were busy with the ritual and the sacrificing of the villagers.

The four advanced slowly, soon attracting a retinue of beastmen groupies all chanting "Shub! Shub!" Occasionally, across the ziggurat, there could be heard an echoing chant of "Ni-Gu-RATH! Ni-Gu-RATH!"

This was when things got deadly.

Dolores, the chaotic Thief, snuck up behind the slowly advancing group with the beastmen groupies and backstabbed the one in the rear. Nobody noticed her silently killing the trailing beastman, and so the group kept on advancing around the ziggurat, and Dolores kept up slaughtering the beastmen. It was pretty epic, she took out about 5 or so beastmen before she missed.

Emboldened by her success, a halfling (played by Benjamen) ran up and tried to attack some beastmen, but missed. They grabbed him, and hauled him up the ziggurat.

Then Shun Tai the elf (played by Zack) cast sleep on the beastman shaman and an acolyte, and succeeded. Since he was close to the magma, Shun Tai wondered aloud "will he fall into the magma?" I gave him a reflex save and he failed, so into the magma he went, with the effigy. Boom. The party cheered.

About this time all hell broke loose and Juan Delgado charged up to the top and started meleeing beastmen. The halfling who'd been nabbed burned a ton of luck to get loose just before they tossed him into the magma, then he fled back to where he'd dropped his mithril shortswords (more on those in a bit, heh). Realizing the ruse, the beastmen engaged the party and a pitched battle ensued.

The party took out a few more beastmen with no losses, then Molan appeared out of the magma and everybody went "ruh roh." Shun Tai, however, used sleep AGAIN to great effect... there's nothing in the module that says he's immune to sleep, so... failing the will save, Molan went down, along with another acolyte. Juan Delgado tried to take out the sleeping Molan, but didn't do enough damage and he woke up.

But I don't think he EVER hit anyone with the flaming flail. It was very disappointing. Juan Delgado disarmed him with a mighty deed, which was cool. Then the 0-level wizard's apprentice sprinted to the top and grabbed the flail. Next round, however, because his luck was so low at that point, Molan turned to strike him ... and critted. The crit roll was to disarm the target's weapon d20+5' in a random direction, so the flaming flail went flying and, of course, the 0-level wizard's apprentice was dead.

It took them a while after that to mop up the beastmen, and Fatty McGee went down twice, being healed once by John Craven the cleric, but then John Craven failed his heal roll the second time (incurring MORE anger from Crazy Old Testament God / Jewish God, I think he's on a 6 or less now). Shun Tai and another elf, Wei, both went down and weren't healed, and a couple of 0s bought the farm as well... but ultimately the party prevailed. Bodies were rolled over and Shun Tai and Fatty McGee lived, at the cost of MORE stamina loss (they were the ones who went down in the tower above).

When Molan disintegrated into the magma pillar, the halfling with the mithral shortswords ran up and attacked, easily sticking the magma pillar with the swords, and promptly melting them. No idea what the melting point of mithral is but I'mma guess magma ought to have some meltacious effect on it. Heh.

Then the ground started shaking and a few characters did some quick, brief looting (Juan Delgado grabbed the blacked plate mail) and they got back onto the boat before it was swept out through the collapsing cave. We ended there as it was late.

Lessons from this session:Sleeping targets are attacked at +1d, not just +2 or +4. So, good to know.Can you crit on a 20+ if you're attacking with a d24? Sure seems like you should.Deity disapproval... uuuuuuugh... clerics are really tough. Or, this guy's luck is just seriously awful.Sneaking/hiding/backstabbing is powerful, daggers rock. Thieves are pretty badass.

Next up: a choice for the party... left(south, following a small stream) is Hirot and Doom of the Savage Kings, right(north into a canyon/badlands) is People of the Pit. We'll see what they choose!

IMC, there's three main Chaotic deities, The Strangler, The Black Goat, and The Crawler, corresponding to (of course) Cthulhu, Shub-niggurath, and Nyarlathotep. I haven't really written them up in terms of portfolio or anything, but essentially the beastmen are followers of Shub-niggurath, which is also the goat-demon-face that was in the crystal from Portal Under the Stars (which Dolores the Thief is still carrying around, but she can't do anything with it, d10 spell checks won't work heh). I think the People of the Pit are going to be more into The Strangler, perhaps Palymdibis is a corrupted servant of Cthulhu. I may try to work The Crawler into Doom of the Savage Kings some, but maybe not... I'm considering porting B4 to DCC and may use Nyarlathotep there, since the name fits with the pyramid theme quite nicely.

IMC, there's three main Chaotic deities, The Strangler, The Black Goat, and The Crawler, corresponding to (of course) Cthulhu, Shub-niggurath, and Nyarlathotep. I haven't really written them up in terms of portfolio or anything, but essentially the beastmen are followers of Shub-niggurath, which is also the goat-demon-face that was in the crystal from Portal Under the Stars (which Dolores the Thief is still carrying around, but she can't do anything with it, d10 spell checks won't work heh). I think the People of the Pit are going to be more into The Strangler, perhaps Palymdibis is a corrupted servant of Cthulhu. I may try to work The Crawler into Doom of the Savage Kings some, but maybe not... I'm considering porting B4 to DCC and may use Nyarlathotep there, since the name fits with the pyramid theme quite nicely.

That's where Lovecraft got it, isn't it? Cthulhu comes from some Arabic word meaning "the strangler." Okay, that's what I thought anyway, but I just spent like 20 minutes trying to find some back up and I can't find it. I am 100% certain that I read somewhere that Lovecraft was thinking of a watery demon thing and something close to Cthulhu has to do with drowning and asphyxiation. Maybe I read it in a Joshi book or something? I can't recall. But, anyway, that's what I was thinking of...

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum